I heard an interesting stat on the radio this morning. Over 50% of US households are not married couples. This is a huge demographic shift that has been sneaking up on us. While there are also about 11 million non-married couples that still leaves a huge number of singles. As the population ages and women outlive men, there are an increasing number of baby boomer females without mates.

MSN and Visa have launched a contest to help small businesses "breakthrough" to new growth and profits. They have created a fantastic intereactive site (high speed internet access required) to outline the contest rules and highlight the case studies of the winners. Tehe contest is ongoing and even if you are not interested in submitting an entry the video case studies are well worth watching.

If you are interested in how retail fits into the urban landscape then you should read Richard Layman's blog Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

Reading up on UNIQLO's flagship launch in NYC and started looking that temporary stores they distributed around the city in advance to build buzz. The container stores are cool and I really liked this fitting room idea. This ties in with the idea of Transumers and Experiential retail. Cool and fun. Click on the More link to see the image.

TRANSUMERS are consumers driven by experiences instead of the ‘fixed’, by entertainment, by discovery, by fighting boredom, who increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The fixed is replaced by an obsession with the current, an ever-shorter satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many experiences and stories as possible. In other words; the past is, well, over, and the future is uncertain, so all that remains is the present, living for the 'now'*.

Fabric and care tags can mystify and confuse. Sure 100% cotton, be careful, don't shrink it is easy enough to remember, but what if your latest line is built around Caprolan, Creora, GloSpan, Mynx or Sensura!